We begin tonight at the Constitutional Court of Korea.
The nine-justice court has begun hearing the oral arguments in the impeachment trial against
President Park Geun-hye.
The president was not in attendance, but the court proceeded as the Constitutional Court
noted it could not force her to appear.
Key witnesses were summoned to testify at the hearing today... our Kim Jiyeon files
this report from the Constitutional Court in downtown Seoul.
During the second hearing in President Park Geun-hye's impeachment trial at the Constitutional
Court on Thursday, the National Assembly's legal team questioned Yoon Jeon-chu, an official
at the presidential office of Cheong Wa Dae, in order to dig deeper into her role and tasks
at the top office.
Yoon testified that she was in charge of President Park Geun-hye's personal affairs from time-to-time,...
some times picking up the president's clothes from designers and cleaners.
She also said that she was not fond of President Park's longtime confidante, Choi Soon-sil,
and denied acting as her personal secretary.
Yoon is considered a key witness in clarifying the president's whereabouts on the day of
the Sewol-ho ferry disaster in 2014 that killed more than 300 people, mostly high school students.
When asked about her recollection of that day, Yoon said she saw former presidential
secretary Ahn Bong-geun and two of the staff in charge of the president's hair and makeup
entering the president's residence.
The legal team said the president had failed to fulfill her duties as head of state and
violated the sovereignty of the people by giving Choi access to state documents... and
by colluding with Choi to pressure private businesses to make donations to two government-linked
foundations.
The team also said the president infringed on the freedom of the press by reprimanding
local media outlets that reported on Choi and her inner circle.
The team added the president neglected her duty to protect citizens' lives by failing
to use the resources at her disposal to save lives during the Sewol-ho ferry disaster.
The president's lawyers refuted all the charges brought by the National Assembly team.
The legal team also denied the allegation that the president pressed the National Pension
Service to support a merger between Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries.
They said that would have been impossible because the merger took place eight days before
President Park's one-on-one meeting with Samsung Electronics' Vice President Lee Jae-yong
in July of 2015.
The lawyers also said President Park did not know that Choi was involved with funneling
money through non-profit organizations including the Mir and K-Sports foundations.
"Court appearances have been rescheduled to two weeks from now for other witnesses that
have failed to appear including former presidential secretaries Lee Jae-man and Ahn Bong-geun.
The hearing for Lee Young-sun, another official at the presidential office of Cheong Wa Dae,
is slated for next Thursday.
Kim Ji-yeon, Arirang News."
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